A system has been widely spread that manages processing of information processing apparatuses, such as a computer, from an external apparatus. For example, in an ATCA (Advanced Telecom Computing Architecture) standard (“PICMG 3.0 Revision 2.0 Advanced TCA Base Specification”, PCI Industrial Computer Manufactures Group, Oct. 28, 2005, P 3-31 to 3-38) which defines physical/logical specifications of a blade server system, a plurality of states has been prescribed in relation to progress of start-up processing in a server blade, which is an information processing apparatus of the blade server system. Additionally, a management apparatus (shelf manager) provided in a chassis etc. of the blade server system proceeds with the start-up processing of the server blade by managing transition of a state in the server blade. The management apparatus sequentially acquires information, such as power consumption, from the server blade in a process of making a state of the server blade transition, and predicts power demand by hardware resources, such as devices including the server blade in the chassis. If the predicted power demand then falls within a range capable of being supplied from a power supply apparatus in the chassis, the management apparatus makes the server blade start to supply power from the power supply apparatus. As described above, start-up processing in the server blade is made to proceed in previously decided order under management of the management apparatus, and thereby the server blade is reliably started in a state where reliability of the whole blade server system is maintained.
It is to be noted that as another example of a system having an information processing apparatus and a management apparatus, there is included a server system provided with: in a chassis, a plurality of processor cards; and a server management card that detects a rotational speed and temperature of a fan in each processor card, and detects insertion and extraction of the processor card (for example, see Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2003-150409).
Meanwhile, as a method to improve fault tolerance of a system, there is included a method for preparing a standby system apparatus in addition to an operation system apparatus. For example, there is disclosed a method in which when a service processor of an operation system, which is the system under operation of processing, breaks down in a system in which consistency of information is achieved between a main body apparatus and a service processor, the main body apparatus and a spare service processor are connected to each other, and a spare service processing apparatus reads information held by the main body apparatus (for example, see Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 59-14054).
Meanwhile, it is considered that also in a server system conforming to the AICA standard, for the purpose of improvement in the fault tolerance of the system, a management apparatus of a standby system that stands by while a management apparatus of an operation system is operating is installed in addition to the management apparatus of the operation system, and thereby the management apparatus is made to be redundant. However, when the management apparatus is made to be redundant, there has been a problem of how the management apparatus of the standby system takes over control of state transition in a server blade when the management apparatus of the operation system stops during execution of start-up processing in the server blade, which is an information processing apparatus that performs processing.
As mentioned above, the management apparatus of the operation system proceeds with the start-up processing of the server blade in previously decided order. Even when the management apparatus of the standby system takes over the control of the start-up processing of the server blade, the order of the start-up processing of the server blade is preferably followed. If the order of the start-up processing of the server blade is changed when the management apparatus of the standby system takes over the control of the start-up processing of the server blade, the start-up processing of the server blade stops, and is not normally completed. For example, when a management apparatus of the operation system is changed during the start-up processing of the server blade, if the management apparatus that has newly operated as the operation system performs control so that start-up processing of the server blade is executed from the beginning, the order of the start-up processing is not followed, and thus the start-up processing is not normally completed.
In addition, it is considered that not only in the above-described server system, but also in another system that manages progress of a processing sequence in an information processing apparatus by a management apparatus, a management apparatus of the standby system is installed in addition to a management apparatus of the operation system. Additionally, even in the system as described above in which the management apparatus of the operation system manages the processing sequence in the information processing apparatus and which has the management apparatus of the standby system, there has been a problem of how the management apparatus of the standby system takes over control to the information processing apparatus and continues the processing of the information processing apparatus, when the management apparatus of the operation system stops during execution of processing in the information processing apparatus.